The 'America's Got Talent' favorite launches her U.S. tour Tuesday.

Outside the box: Electronic. Rock 'n' roll. High-energy. Fist-pumping. These are probably not the first things that come to mind when someone mentions a violin concert. "It's not what most people expect ... when they buy tickets for a violinist," says Lindsey Stirling of her live show. The 26-year-old hip-hop violinist — a label coined during her appearance on the fifth season of America's Got Talent — recently wrapped up a European tour and is taking her show across North America on a two-month trek, which kicks off Tuesday in Pawtucket, R.I.

But if her live show is any indication, it's hard to put a definitive label on Stirling, whose sound crosses over the electronic, hip-hop and pop genres — even dipping into video-game music. "You're the best person when you're yourself," Stirling says. "The kind of music I play exemplifies that idea of, you don't have to fit into any sort of box in order to be accepted."

The start of something good: Growing up in Gilbert, Ariz., Stirling was 6 years old when she started begging her parents for violin lessons. "I was the kind of kid who would play with a toy for five minutes and then be like, 'OK, I'm bored with that! I'm done.' " Inspired by the classical music her parents would play in the house, Stirling says violin was the first thing that ever stuck. "I've played almost every day since then." And while she dabbled in the flute, she eventually decided to stick with just one instrument during the school day. "My freshman year, I was an orc dork and a band nerd," she says, laughing. "Then I realized it was social suicide to be carrying the violin and the flute to school."

Love the wub-wub-wub: Stirling, who went to school at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, fell in love with electronic music, but at first she "didn't know there was a huge electronic scene anywhere in the world," let alone in Provo. She started writing some music with Marko G, the only producer she could find in the area who could work with electronic beats. The two created backbeats over which Stirling would then write violin lines, "starting with an idea and watching that idea come to life." Since then, Stirling has made violin-infused dubstep a hallmark of her work. Her self-titled album, released in September, is the No. 1 electronic album on iTunes and No. 51 on iTunes' albums chart.

A chilling experience: Crystallize, Stirling's biggest hit on her popular YouTube channel, which has garnered more than 223 million views, features sweeping shots of the violinist gracefully dancing while playing her instrument in the midst of an ethereal ice castle sculpture in Silverthorne, Colo. But while making the video, which has in excess of 45 million views itself, things weren't quite so smooth.

"It was freezing, absolutely freezing there," Stirling says. "You could tell in the video — my nose is red and my fingers are numb. The funny thing was that it is a tourist attraction, so as I was filming there, there were lots of people walking around." They would wait until there wasn't a crowd and filmed for a few minutes until more people inevitably showed up. "It was also slightly embarrassing because it was so cold that I couldn't play well. My fingers just hurt. And all these people are like, 'Who the heck is this random girl, playing terribly, in this ice castle?' " she says with a laugh.

On the 'Tube: Stirling depends on social media to stay in touch with her fan base, frequently posting video updates and behind-the-scenes snippets. Her YouTube subscribers are the "blood that feed the whole system and keep it running. They're really important to me," she says. Stirling recognizes that going viral on YouTube — Crystallize was its eighth most-watched video of 2012 — has been crucial to her accomplishments thus far. "I'm proud of the fact that I'm a YouTuber, and that's how I found my success. I feel a lot of loyalty to those YouTube subscribers who support me because they're the ones that made it all work and made my dreams come true."

Gaming girl: Because of her covers of video-game music, including songs from Skyrim, The Legend of Zelda and Assassin's Creed, with videos to match, Stirling has found herself with a large following of gamers. "Gaming fans are super-loyal, and so I feel very lucky that they've latched on to what I do." And while her busy schedule usually keeps her from spending too much time with a controller and a console, she says in the future that she'd like to compose original music for video games. "It's seriously epic stuff."